Google debuts Project Glass: Augmented reality glasses, exactly as you want them to be

Google announced today what could be its most amazing undertaking yet: Project Glass, which aims to build a pair of amazing augmented reality glasses. First reported by The New York Times back in February, the venture is being spearheaded by Google[x], the Mountain View, California, company’s top-secret technology testing group. And from the looks of it, Project Glass is on its way to becoming a mind-blowing success.

“A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment,” the company wrote in a post on Google+. “We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input. So we took a few design photos to show what this technology could look like and created a video to demonstrate what it might enable you to do.”

Along with the announcement, Google also released a concept video (below) that shows some of the ways the AR glasses might be used. At this point, it looks as though they’ve built in much of the functionality available on most smartphones, like reminders, writing and sending messages via (Siri-like) voice control, maps and directions, photo-taking, and other types of features. The best part is that all of this information appears on the lenses, which is much less of a hassle than looking at your phone every time you want to perform one of these actions. In fact, if Google can really create a product that’s as good as the video makes it seem like it could be, then we could see technology like this replacing phones altogether, somewhere a ways down the line.

Of course, there’s not yet any type of release date for the Project Glass AR glasses, nor price, or any type of real features list — they are still trying to decide what the product should be. To do this, they are asking anyone interested to give their two cents about the glasses, which will help Google decide which direction to go.

Regardless, the video definitely gets our hopes up. It’s so cool, in fact, that we wouldn’t be surprised if this is a hold-over from April Fool’s day. Here’s hoping that it’s not.